Insee Première · May 2023 · n° 1947

In 2021, employment in the public service has increased again

At the end of 2021, 5.7 million people worked in the civil service, 21,300 more than a year earlier (+0.4%), a smaller increase than in 2020 (+0.6%). Employment increased significantly in the local civil service (+0.9%), more moderately in the hospital civil service (+0.5%), but was almost stable in the state civil service (-0.1%). Converted to full-time equivalents, annual employment including subsidised contracts increased by 1.2%, more strongly than employment at the end of the year, contrary to 2020.

The number of civil servants, which represented two-thirds of public employees, fell by 0.5% in 2021, while the number of contractual workers increased by 2.8% and the number of subsidised contracts beneficiaries rebounded sharply (+19.9%).

Entries and exits in the civil service increased in 2021. The number of contract workers rosed to 354,900 and accounted for 69% of all entries. The proportion of employees who were in the civil service for only part of the year increased. This situation was more frequent in the territorial civil service.